28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Grouchy]

If Hollywood can transform Andy Serkis into an ape, they could have found a way to hire a disabled actor for the part of John Callahan.

Editing? Shooting? CGI? Animation? Rotoscoping?

Or hell, just hire two different actors to play the role.

The idea that Phoenix---or any able-bodied actor---was required because there were scenes before his accident demonstrates a basic failure of imagination. It also telegraphs that the producers intend to make a standard biopic. Who needs another one of those?

Anyway, I'd like someone in the trade press to ask the Wachowski siblings what they think of Scarjo and this new project.

(I'd also like to know why, as a producer, you wouldn't immediately call them up. The Wachowskis have good experience making crime pics with doses of action. Sanders doesn't.)

This seems pretty ridiculous to me. On one side there's a very practical, sensible solution (casting a great actor as the protagonist of your film and having him act paralysis) and then there's a bunch of nonsense ones (using CGI to make another actor look like he's walking, hiring two different actors who are similar but one of them is quadriplegic, etc.) and I can't even understand if you're serious when you expect a film production to go with the silly ideas. Why would anyone complicate a shoot like that? Because of some butthurt quadriplegic writing an e-mail? Because... quadriplegic people have a monopoly on playing quadriplegic people? The conversation gets absurd pretty fast.

[Irish]

Why would anyone complicate a shoot like that?

Why indeed.

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Why find a creative solution to an obvious problem when you can shoot the same biopic everyone's seen multiple times already? Why be artistically daring? Why present anything new? Why challenge audiences?

[baby doll]

If you say that trans actors have trouble getting cast, then how is this actor who is trans going to become well known? I don't see it happening until the stigma is not only removed, but shown to be financially successful. That's far more likely to happen through a huge name playing a trans role than "good faith" casting of a trans actor in a role major enough to generate a "mainstream star". Good faith couldn't even get rid of "rampant sexual abuse", and we're hoping for "cultural acceptance"? Seems a hoop dream to me.

I don't think studio executives will decide casting trans characters based on the box office take of this one movie. I certainly think they will decide to not cast based on there only being one trans film, and it doing poorly, or based on several trans films all receiving bad press for cis actors playing in roles that the studio refuses to cast a trans actor in. I think there are many things that need to go right for a studio to risk money on "social acceptance", and few things to go wrong. Negative press for casting a big name star? That's already something going wrong.

As I see it, the answer to the real world dilemma of "How do we get trans people to be treated equally in Hollywood - soon?" is, "Use money not tied to box office performance, or support casting big name cis actors in trans roles." The assumption that "things will just work themselves out" is one that won't involve "soon" in any way, I don't think, unfortunately.

I think you're conflating two issues. The first is the stigma against trans people in the general culture, which is neither as widespread nor as insurmountable as you're making it out to be. Fifteen years ago, most Americans were against equal rights for gay people. There are not that many genuine bigots; most people are idiots who are incapable of critical thinking and follow the herd wherever it happens to be going. The other, separate issue is opportunities for trans actors. How will they get famous? The same way Johansson did: years of plugging away at supporting roles in indie and mid-range projects until they get a serious break. And the only way for that to happen is for people to put significant public pressure on studios to hire trans actors, as is happening now because of the Johansson picture. Casting cis-gender actors in trans roles, while justifiable in theory, does nothing to help trans actors. The only way to help trans actors is to give them jobs.

[PURPLE]

If there is so little stigma against trans people, then why has there not been a "mainstream trans star" thus far? There has been a huge change toward the knowledge of and beliefs toward gay people, primarily around changing the idea that being gay is a "lifestyle choice" and something that you can "pray away", which are now both widely acknowledged as nonsense where before it wasn't. I haven't seen that happen for trans people, and I don't know that there will be a lightning rod like gay marriage for trans people to spread understanding, and I think the experience of a trans person is far, far less understood in the general populace than homosexuality.

We'll see in a couple years, but I will be hugely unsurprised if there has been little to no movement in mainstream culture with regards to trans people. I think this is because there is so little understanding, and understanding will certainly not be generated in "a couple of years" by a few films with trans characters and no-name trans actors. Scarlett went from a no-name indie film star to a mainstream star because she was acknowledged as one of the most beautiful people on the planet, and she fit squarely into the status quo. The idea that the same path will work just the same for someone outside of the status quo seems ill formed, to me. Especially in only "a couple of years", basically 5 years shorter than Scarlett's trajectory from Ghost World indie queen to comic book side-character (not even the top of the world).

[Wryan]

I think there will be a widely successful, talented and popular closeted trans actor before a widely successful, talented and popular non-closeted trans actor (I know--we're getting ever more granular by degrees). I'm talking so quiet, and so successfully passing, that even their agents and managers don't know. But then we'd not distinguish them from a cis counterpart, hence part of the problem. Visibility and representation would seem to form the fulcrum around which this balances. Would it be wrong to stay "closeted" in such a scenario? When Ed Skrein left that role, I think that was a solid, reasonable, defensible choice. I think the nature of the business won't change until it's compelled to. At the same time, I'm not sure I'm convinced that "trans nature" = "racial nature" when it comes to who "deserves" to be considered for a role. Yet I also agree that their choices are so much more limited in the first place. Hire more trans people to play either gender for starters, maybe. Gimme a trans woman playing a feminine gay man. Let's roll deep in this bitch.

[Grouchy]

Why indeed.

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Show Spoiler

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Why find a creative solution to an obvious problem when you can shoot the same biopic everyone's seen multiple times already? Why be artistically daring? Why present anything new? Why challenge audiences?

I haven't seen that Brian Wilson biopic so I can't comment on it, but it seems to me the dual casting is purposefully done to represent two very different stages of the same man's life. It seems to me that it serves a purpose. Andy Serkis transformed into an ape is done so you can have a convincing, emotional talking ape character - it's technology at the service of storytelling, not a hat trick whose sole purpose is itself.

If you can have the same (excellent) actor play a character before and after an accident, why would you hire a handicapped person and go to the trouble of faking him walking around? Keep in mind it's got to be a handicapped person who can act as well as Joaquin Phoenix.

[Peng]

I don't mind Gyllenhaal being in Stronger (and I think the film didn't have negative press anyway), but the Phoenix point makes me immediately flash back to that film and reminds of how "star power" and "already established excellent actor" can really apply anytime to any situation, because conversely why would you hire an able person and go to the trouble of faking him being an amputee for the majority of the film?

btw I was on phone earlier and didn't elaborate that "the way it is" I got partially from reading Mark Harris book is that the book makes me think of when I watched Elia Kazan's Pinky. The story concerns a white-passing black woman in the role in which they cast a white woman, even if there were black women who fit this role and were interested in it (you can look it up in the film's wiki). I was wondering if the discussion after the casting controversy then will be similar to now, about how casting a black actor in good, appropriate role just "isn't the way it is", "is not commercial" or "there is no black actor that will draw the crowd". And then not long after Sidney Poitier broke out.

[Grouchy]

A key point of this discussion to me is that it has nothing to do with racial features, that's a whole different can of worms. I mean, disguising a white guy as black or chinese looks exactly like that, a disguise, and one with very negative historical connotations. But anyone can dress himself as the opposite sex or act handicapped.

[baby doll]

If there is so little stigma against trans people, then why has there not been a "mainstream trans star" thus far? There has been a huge change toward the knowledge of and beliefs toward gay people, primarily around changing the idea that being gay is a "lifestyle choice" and something that you can "pray away", which are now both widely acknowledged as nonsense where before it wasn't. I haven't seen that happen for trans people, and I don't know that there will be a lightning rod like gay marriage for trans people to spread understanding, and I think the experience of a trans person is far, far less understood in the general populace than homosexuality.

We'll see in a couple years, but I will be hugely unsurprised if there has been little to no movement in mainstream culture with regards to trans people. I think this is because there is so little understanding, and understanding will certainly not be generated in "a couple of years" by a few films with trans characters and no-name trans actors. Scarlett went from a no-name indie film star to a mainstream star because she was acknowledged as one of the most beautiful people on the planet, and she fit squarely into the status quo. The idea that the same path will work just the same for someone outside of the status quo seems ill formed, to me. Especially in only "a couple of years", basically 5 years shorter than Scarlett's trajectory from Ghost World indie queen to comic book side-character (not even the top of the world).

One reason there hasn't been a mainstream gay trans star up till now is there hasn't been any significant public pushback against casting cis actors in trans roles, like we're seeing now with the Johansson film. Until recently there was no incentive for studio execs to cast trans actors in any role.

Regarding the broader culture, I don't think the general public is necessarily more understanding about gay people now than they were fifteen years ago. At a certain point, it was simply no longer socially acceptable to hate on gay people anymore and, if people were genuinely anti-gay, they stopped saying it out loud. You don't convince people; you just shame them into acting right.

In a sense, that's what's happening now for studio execs who cast cis actors in trans roles. If people shame them enough for not casting trans actors, eventually they'll feel like they have to do it.

[PURPLE]

One reason there hasn't been a mainstream gay trans star up till now is there hasn't been any significant public pushback against casting cis actors in trans roles, like we're seeing now with the Johansson film. Until recently there was no incentive for studio execs to cast trans actors in any role.

Regarding the broader culture, I don't think the general public is necessarily more understanding about gay people now than they were fifteen years ago. At a certain point, it was simply no longer socially acceptable to hate on gay people anymore and, if people were genuinely anti-gay, they stopped saying it out loud. You don't convince people; you just shame them into acting right.

In a sense, that's what's happening now for studio execs who cast cis actors in trans roles. If people shame them enough for not casting trans actors, eventually they'll feel like they have to do it.

A sizable number of Hollywood actors and actresses were already gay, they just didn't come out publicly. Once they did, it still took decades for a reasonable number of films featuring gay people to come out, and there are still next to none in big-budget films. It wasn't like there was a wait for a gay star in Hollywood - there were dozens, merely without announcing it. Also, there is a demonstrable increase in private acknowledgement of the need for gay rights through anonymous surveys of the general population, which has nothing to do with shame. I highly doubt there has been a similar change with attitudes toward trans people.

There is no incentive at all for studio execs to make films with trans characters at all - far easier to make none at all. Scarlett's film is being made because she's moving the ball forward, not being requested by a studio. I guess it is true that studio execs may cast 100% of the 0 films featuring trans characters with trans actors moving forward, but that doesn't seem like progress.

[baby doll]

A sizable number of Hollywood actors and actresses were already gay, they just didn't come out publicly. Once they did, it still took decades for a reasonable number of films featuring gay people to come out, and there are still next to none in big-budget films. It wasn't like there was a wait for a gay star in Hollywood - there were dozens, merely without announcing it. Also, there is a demonstrable increase in private acknowledgement of the need for gay rights through anonymous surveys of the general population, which has nothing to do with shame. I highly doubt there has been a similar change with attitudes toward trans people.

There is no incentive at all for studio execs to make films with trans characters at all - far easier to make none at all. Scarlett's film is being made because she's moving the ball forward, not being requested by a studio. I guess it is true that studio execs may cast 100% of the 0 films featuring trans characters with trans actors moving forward, but that doesn't seem like progress.

Of course, all minority groups are underrepresented in mainstream filmmaking, but one can still point to high profile films with black, Asian, and openly gay actors in them. I don't see why trans people are so beyond the pale that even the sort of limited representation you see for other minority groups--to say nothing of broader acceptance in the culture, whether genuine or conformist--would be unthinkable in the near future, especially if trans actors start getting steady work playing supporting roles in mainstream films (possibly even as cisgender characters).

Also, it's not as if the Johansson film were some kind of unique test case for films and TV shows with trans characters: films like Boys Don't Cry and Transamerica and the TV show Transparent have all shown that there is a fairly substantial audience for trans content. It seems unlikely that Hollywood is suddenly going to stop making the occasional mid-range film or TV show with a trans protagonist because people are being mean to Scarlett Johansson on Twitter. It's not unthinkable even that a trans actor might get a leading role in a mid-range studio production in the next few years.

[PURPLE]

Of course, all minority groups are underrepresented in mainstream filmmaking, but one can still point to high profile films with black, Asian, and openly gay actors in them. I don't see why trans people are so beyond the pale that even the sort of limited representation you see for other minority groups--to say nothing of broader acceptance in the culture, whether genuine or conformist--would be unthinkable in the near future, especially if trans actors start getting steady work playing supporting roles in mainstream films (possibly even as cisgender characters).

Also, it's not as if the Johansson film were some kind of unique test case for films and TV shows with trans characters: films like Boys Don't Cry and Transamerica and the TV show Transparent have all shown that there is a fairly substantial audience for trans content. It seems unlikely that Hollywood is suddenly going to stop making the occasional mid-range film or TV show with a trans protagonist because people are being mean to Scarlett Johansson on Twitter. It's not unthinkable even that a trans actor might get a leading role in a mid-range studio production in the next few years.

In my experience, the average person's cognitive distance between race or between sexual preference is much, much smaller than gender identity. I don't even think it's common for people to understand that there can be a difference between sex and gender. Furthermore, the visibility of all of those other categories is hugely disproportionately higher than trans people. Try to find a list of people that came out as gay last year and you'll find huge lists. Trans? Not so much. You'll find some things on Caitlyn Jenner, and far, far more of it is dismissive, ignorant, or hateful than makes any sense.

I'm not convinced that 1 mildly successful independent film / cable tv show per decade is indicative of a substantial audience. Do you really think those films are indicative of a "substantial audience"? None of the films made enough to pay for a mid-size studio film budget, and they don't even make those films anymore. I don't disagree that a trans person could get cast in a mid-range film or TV show in the near future - but a single casting is a far, far cry from being a "mainstream star" as you mentioned earlier. I think you're greatly underestimating the cultural divide that still needs to be crossed by trans people, unfortunately. I wish things were as rosy as you make them seem!

[Grouchy]

Also, it's not as if the Johansson film were some kind of unique test case for films and TV shows with trans characters: films like Boys Don't Cry and Transamerica and the TV show Transparent have all shown that there is a fairly substantial audience for trans content. It seems unlikely that Hollywood is suddenly going to stop making the occasional mid-range film or TV show with a trans protagonist because people are being mean to Scarlett Johansson on Twitter. It's not unthinkable even that a trans actor might get a leading role in a mid-range studio production in the next few years.

This is interesting to me. I recognize myself as old fashioned when it comes to transgender people. Like, I know this singer who now has no fucking gender. I still don't understand how that's possible. I'm not sure if it's real or a con. And I'd like to believe it's real.

Shaming Scarlett doesn't convince me of anything.

[Peng]

This is interesting to me. I recognize myself as old fashioned when it comes to transgender people. Like, I know this singer who now has no fucking gender. I still don't understand how that's possible. I'm not sure if it's real or a con. And I'd like to believe it's real.

I follow some transgender film critics long enough to see your past descriptions, especially using the word "choice" and also this post doubting someone's realness (I mean, it's possible that this person isn't genuine, but to give this example and not give information about them in a discussion such as this really digs into some very old stereotypical notions against them as real people), a bit troubling. Not too long ago aren't people questioning this about gay people too?

Shaming Scarlett doesn't convince me of anything.

Shaming Scarlett might convince her though, because (a) even as someone who likes Ghost in the Shell, I find it almost hilarious that she chooses to team up with this exact director with almost the exact same controversy, just with another American minority group, to regurgitate the whole thing over again. That almost indicates her lack of empathy, but there are still enough room for good-faith arguments for her, if not for (as have been mentioned in this thread before) (b) her response, which is one of the worst non-politics whataboutism I have seen. I still love her as an actress but this really puts a very bad insight into her thought process, in that she doesn't care, or have very little empathy about, the film's topic any more than the acclaims and/or awards that past performers associated with this topic have received.

[Grouchy]

I have to admit that, though I'm not embarassed of my post and it's true that I know a singer who claims to have no gender, I have no memory of writing it.

Maybe I should drink less.

[Milky Joe]

http://www.afterellen.com/general-ne...-history-again

Scarlett Johansson just landed a new role. And while people are complaining the role should be played by a “trans man,” lesbians have pointed out that the character she’s playing in the new film Rub & Tug, Dante Gill, was a “butch” lesbian, not trans. Even in Dante Gill’s own obituary, Gill is described as an “unabashed lesbian,” because that’s exactly how the notorious butch-les self-identified while alive.

This whole argument is moot.

[Skitch]

Maybe I should drink less.

Lets not get crazy.

[Ivan Drago]

While I do feel like actors should always strive to play roles outside of their comfort zone and continue to grow themselves as artists, and filmmakers should work with whoever they're comfortable with, representation ultimately does matter and between Scarlett's response and studio plant Rupert Sanders at the helm of the movie, this whole deal reeks of a project made solely for awards acclaim and that's more than a little shitty. But, such is Hollywood: the land of lip service and double standards.

[Ezee E]

[Ivan Drago]

DJ Khaled has strange taste.

Speaking of which, the indie theater I go to is doing a series of staff picks for the summer and I promised one of my friends who works there that I would go to his pick, no matter what it was.

Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom has long been one of the five movies I've said I will never see.

It won't be for too much longer.

[Skitch]

I tried watching it once. Good luck.

[baby doll]

DJ Khaled has strange taste.

Speaking of which, the indie theater I go to is doing a series of staff picks for the summer and I promised one of my friends who works there that I would go to his pick, no matter what it was.

Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom has long been one of the five movies I've said I will never see.

It won't be for too much longer.

I've seen it twice, which is twice too many times. It's a deliberately alienating film: There's no story to speak of and Pasolini isn't doing anything interesting stylistically either. In other words, your friend sucks at picking Pasolini films, because there are at least half a dozen that are flat-out brilliant.

[Ezee E]

It's... Not good. I think people claim to like it just for the ick factor.

[Irish]

there are at least half a dozen that are flat-out brilliant.

Care to throw out a few titles? I've seen nothing. What's a good entry point?

[Grouchy]

Care to throw out a few titles? I've seen nothing. What's a good entry point?

I'm not baby but Teorema.